When we were planning the honeymoon phase of our wedding I floated the idea of a camping trip.
“I dunno. I’ve never been camping.”
“You haven’t?”
(shrugs) “You drive 200 miles in Iowa you’re just camping in someone else’s cornfield.”
We did a sample trip, a weekend in Feather River canyon, and she loved it.
Back in the early 2010s, I took a couple of Japanese customers to America to NYC for a series of business meetings after Christmas and before New Year’s.
A snowstorm had shut down everything in the area and we were diverted to Detroit.
As it was holiday travel season there wasn’t anything available for a couple of days, which would have made us too late for the meetings.
We were able to get a hotel and then rented a car the next morning. It’s about 11 hours or so, but I was jet lagged and the only one who had a license along, so it was a long drive to do in one day.
I often avoid flying, finding it’s almost as fast to drive or train for short distances. And less demeaning (no TSA!), even if I spend more time on longer trips.
But the last time I started planning a long car trip (that one was Chicago to LA), I remembered those “Not-Quite-Great Plains” states. then I checked Amtrak prices (and saved a lot by taking coach).
So there I was, thinking “Yeah, these states are still wide, but now I’m reading, eating good food, and hey, that big Amish family just invited me to play Settlers of Catan… this ain’t so bad!”
You need the time to do this though. Either retired, on sabbatical, or independently wealthy.
The last time I drove cross-country willingly (other than my recent hell-ride), was when I had a month off before reporting to my first submarine.
Other than that, you kill a lot of vacation time in a car (or train). I went to Alaska last month, and only took a week off work. I flew, of course. It would take more than a week to drive there and back from New England, and there are no passenger trains to Alaska from the lower 48.